In the news – on Donald Trump and Nocturnal Animals

... The first foreign leader to call and congratulate Trump upon his election victory in November was the Egyptian president Abdel Fatah al-Sisi. Of course! I could not imagine two world leaders whose public record of misogyny better capture the politically sanctioned patriarchy that so challenges feminism today.

This column will contain spoilers for the film Nocturnal Animals. But that doesn’t matter because it’s a repulsive film and you shouldn’t see it anyway. It came out a while ago; I saw it last week only because it’s had nine Bafta nominations – and I wish I’d read a column with a spoiler in it, because then I wouldn’t have gone.

So, if you haven’t seen it, I’m afraid the rest of this paragraph is going to spoil the excitement of the “will they/won’t they” moment. Will the women be raped? They will! Will they be murdered? They will!

Sorry if that ruined the surprise. Many reviewers have enthused about the gripping suspense of that scene and now I’ve told you how it pans out. Then again, for some viewers, it will improve their viewing immensely. There’s a very long bit before the rape and murder, you see, in which the women sob and scream and pray for their lives; in which a mother desperately and poignantly tries to protect her doomed daughter. You’re really able to experience, empathetically and viscerally, their awful fear. It’s a good few scenes later that we get to hear they’ve been raped and to see their dead, naked bodies in a heap. ...